


Safe Landing

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Key Largo (1948)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Hope, Safe Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 11:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: Gaye lands on her feet.





	Safe Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2019 Snowflake Challenge, day 7.

Gaye ends up back at the hotel for no reason other than she has nowhere else to go. Nora is sweeping the porch when she arrives, and gives her a long look, and opens the door without a word. Frank is inside, at a table, bent over some papers with Mr. Temple.

"Hi, Gaye," he says, and gets up to pour her a drink.

"Thanks, fella," she says, when he gives it to her, and he nods and says, "You're welcome."

Mr. Temple is looking at her, searching-like. Nora comes in from the porch and puts a hand on his shoulder, and then they're _all_ looking at her, every one of them and--

She sits down and gulps down her drink. "I can't say why I came back," she says. "Only there's nowhere else for me to go. I don't have any money, or any friends, and I...do you--do you need a maid?"

Back in Chicago, little Maggie Mooney's greatest fear was to grow up to be a maid, like all the other Irish girls. And now--

Well, life's funny like that. A right kick in the teeth sometimes.

"I could maybe do with a maid," Mr. Temple says slowly. "Provided she's sober during work hours."

Gaye wants to cry, because sober is the one thing she can't do. She wants to, she wants to more than anything, but she just _can't_.

"Mostly sober," Frank says. "Don't really need to be more than mostly sober to make a bed, do you?"

Mr. Temple looks at him, and Gaye thinks she's maybe seeing things because she's pretty sure what she has before her are two good men. She can count the number of good men she's met on one hand, and she's never been in the company of two at once.

"No," says Mr. Temple. "I suppose not. Mostly sober then. But anymore than that, and I'll have to let you go."

"I can be mostly sober for the rest of my life," she says, and she's pretty sure it's true too. Just a little bit, to get her through the day, to make it not hurt so much. She's been drinking so hard and so long that a glass of vodka doesn't do much anymore, except stop the shaking, and the second just takes the hard edge off. She can get through the day on two glasses, she knows she can. She's done it before.

"Can't pay much," Mr. Temple says. "During the season, when there's extra to go around, I can go as high as eighty cents an hour, but in the summer, you'll have to make due with half that. You'll get a room, though."

Gaye starts to cry. It's much, much more than she expected. Nora puts a hand on her shoulder, and Gaye says quietly, "Can I ask...one small favor...if it isn't too much? Could you call me Maggie?"

Maggie Mooney died a long time ago, or so Gaye always told herself, but maybe Maggie is still alive after all.

"Well of course we can, Maggie," says Nora.

"I wonder," says Frank, "if Ms. Mooney might ever be called upon to sing for us. She has a real nice voice."

Maggie shakes her head, because singing is no fun anymore, but then she stops, and thinks. "Maybe I can. Not now, but maybe someday."

"Well that would be real nice," says Mr. Temple, and Nora takes her to her room.

end


End file.
